Phobias
by Audrianna13
Summary: It's the Friday before Halloween, and Mr. Lancer decides to let his students relax and have a fun day discussing phobias. However, three students commandeer his lesson when they know more than expected of them...


**A/N: Woot! Second DP fic! Just another random plot bunny - I remember that back when I was in 8th grade, we did this one day in History. Well, we actually took a quiz (our teacher read out the phobia and we tried to guess what it was), but the concept was the same: we talked about phobias. It was very much fun. Ah, to be back in those blissful days of relaxing classes and little to no homework...**

**Anyway, hope you enjoy it!**

**Disclaimer: I still do not own Danny Phantom. The honor of that remains with Butch Hartman. * sticks out tongue in his direction *

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Mr. Lancer glanced down at the sheet of paper he held loosely in his right hand after he had finished checking off all the students on his mental roll call. Amazingly enough, everyone was here, even the notorious skipper Danny Fenton – though that wasn't really saying much, since the teenager was slumped on his desk, fast asleep.

"All right, settle down students!" the slightly overweight teacher called out. Sam punched Danny lightly on the arm and he jerked awake, blinking around blearily. Mr. Lancer could see his eyes were still clouded over slightly with sleep. _It's better than nothing_…he thought. "As I'm sure you all know, tomorrow is Halloween" – the portion of the class that was awake cheered – "and in light of that fact, along with it being a Friday and you _all _passing your most recent tests" – the teacher glanced at Danny – "I've decided that we can have an activity day in class."

All the students groaned. Danny was starting to slump forwards again.

"We're going to learn about phobias," said Mr. Lancer, brandishing the list in his right hand. "Can anyone tell me what a phobia _is_? Ms. Sanchez?"

Paulina hastily stowed her make-up kit in her bag and pretended to pay attention a few moments too late.

"Umm…" she started out. "They're, like, y'know…fears…of stuff?"

Mr. Lancer nodded. Though the delivery had left something to desire, she was essentially correct. "Very good," he said. "A phobia is a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it. There is a prefix in front of the word 'phobia', derived from Latin, which explains what the fear is _of_. For example…Mr. Fenton, are you a somniphobiac?"

Danny lifted his head from the desk he was sleeping on. "Excuse me?" he asked incredulously, yawning. Mr. Lancer was about to repeat himself and explain what the word meant when the raven-haired teen continued by saying, "If I was honestly afraid of sleep, would I be trying to nap in the last few minutes before class starts?" He stretched, waking himself up.

"Class _has_ started, Mr. Fenton, that's why I asked you the question. We're discussing phobias today because Halloween is tomorrow."

Danny paused mid-stretch. "Oh," he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head with one hand as the other dropped back down to his side. "Sorry. But I'm not _afraid_ of sleep. I just don't get enough of it."

Mr. Lancer raised an eyebrow but let it go. The teen had probably stayed up too late playing Doom or something… "That word, class, is a prime example of a phobia. A 'somniphobiac' is a person who is afraid of sleep. Do any of you know other names of phobias? Mr. Baxter?"

Dash stopped folding his newest paper football to flick at the weirdoes in the corner (aka Team Phantom) and looked up at Mr. Lancer. "Arachnophobia?"

"Correct," the teacher said, smiling slightly. "The fear of spiders. Any more?"

"Claustrophobia," called out an unnamed nerd from the front of the classroom.

"Fear of small spaces, very good," praised Mr. Lancer. He looked around the room for more. No hands were raised. He sighed. "Well, it might interest you to know that there's a fear of Halloween, called—"

"'Samhainophobia'," called three voices at the same time from the back corner. Team Phantom looked at each other, laughing.

"Mr. Foley, may I have your PDA?" the teacher inquired, walking to the back. Tucker looked as though Lancer had demanded him turn over an arm or leg as he reluctantly removed it from his pocket. Mr. Lancer examined it closely to find that it was turned off and not warm, meaning it hadn't been used for a couple of minutes at least. He handed it back.

"You three know phobias?" he asked.

The three shifted, slightly uncomfortable.

"A couple of summers ago, Sam ran into the word hippopoto monstros esquipedalio phobia(1) in a book she was reading," Danny said, shrugging. "We thought it was amusing that such a long word meant the fear of long words, so we looked up other phobias and memorized a few that applied in case we ever wanted or needed to use them."

"One of you is afraid of Halloween?" asked Mr. Lancer skeptically. As he recalled, the three teens in front of him were always some of the most jazzed up about the spooky holiday.

"Well, no," said Sam, smiling (Lancer noted she had her vampire fangs in place again). "But my parents are." The smile suddenly became that much colder.

The other two laughed and high-fived their female friend.

Mr. Lancer slowly walked back to the front of the classroom. "All right," he said, looking down at the list in his hand thoughtfully. "What are some other phobias you know?"

"Well, Tucker has Nosocomephobia," said Danny dryly.

"You're afraid of hospitals, Mr. Foley?" the teacher asked. "I suppose it's good you didn't get sick from that illness a while back. I don't know how you would've handled the quarantine…"

Tucker laughed nervously. He'd had to go into the abandoned hospital anyway and then spend a while at the _actual _hospital with a broken leg.

"I have rosaphobia," said Sam, shuddering.

Mr. Lancer frowned. "I don't believe I'm familiar with that one," he said.

"You wouldn't be," she said. "I made it up. It's the fear of the color pink." She shuddered again.

Several of the other students in the room laughed. Paulina looked affronted – how could anyone hate and/or be afraid of _pink_? She huffed.

Sam glared at her, then leaned over and whispered something to Danny and Tucker that put them into hysterics – Mr. Lancer only caught "Paulina" and "Obesophobia or Pocrescophobia". He couldn't help but let out a small laugh. Ms. Sanchez _was _very concerned about gaining weight.

"I'm sure that at least _some of us_" – Danny looked pointedly at Dash – "have nyctophobia." The teen smirked, finally getting to insult the football player without technically doing it, thus not getting in trouble with a teacher or the bully…or so he thought.

"I'm not afraid of the dark!" shouted Dash, standing up. The rest of the class stared at him. He sank back into his seat, red staining his cheeks. "You're _dead_, Fenturd," he muttered, pitching it so that it reached Team Phantom but not the front of the room where Mr. Lancer sat.

Danny snorted. Dash had long since stopped intimidating him.

"What phobias do _you_ have, Mr. Fenton?" asked Mr. Lancer, genuinely curious.

Danny tapped his fingers on his desk thoughtfully. "Autophobia, I suppose. It could also be known as Eremophobia, Isolophobia, or monophobia…"

_Fear of being alone or by oneself, followed by being alone or loneliness, solitude/alone, and solitude/alone again?_ thought Mr. Lancer. _Odd…_

"After that I suppose would be…Agateophobia, also known as Dementophobia, Maniaphobia, or Lyssophobia – wait, Lyssophobia is more for rabies, isn't it?" he mused.

_Fear of insanity? What's going on in this boy's head?_

"Then would be…Hypnophobia? I don't know."

"Fear of sleep or being hypnotized?" Mr. Lancer asked. Danny shrugged.

"Not sleep, but definitely being hypnotized. I heard a rumor that Phantom was hypnotized a year back when Circus Gothica was around. The ringleader, Freakshow, supposedly had a crystal that could control ghosts and make them do what he wanted them to…I don't like the concept of being controlled like that. It freaked me out when I heard of it."

Mr. Lancer's eyebrows knit together. Several of the other students in the class looked confused as well, having not heard that. Valerie was leaning in her seat towards Danny, interested in anything to hear about the ghost boy she was hunting.

"Where did you hear that?" the teacher asked.

Danny looked startled for a moment, and then said, "Hello? Ghost hunters for parents? You hear things when ghosts are talked about and are around that much. Speaking of ghosts, almost every single person in this room probably has Phasmophobia, which is also known as Pneumatiphobia or Spectrophobia."

"Almost?"

Team Phantom laughed.

"It'd be _too_ ironic if _Danny_ were mortally afraid of ghosts," said Sam, laughing lightly.

Tucker chuckled. "_Mortally_? I can't believe you just said that! What are they going to do, scare him half to death?"

This caused the three to collapse in a fit of giggles.

Mr. Lancer was just feeling ridiculously confused. Most of the students felt the same way, though some (jocks and cheerleaders) were starting to realize that they should be offended by the fact that those weirdoes thought that _they _were afraid of some measly _ghosts_ (completely true as it was)!

Suddenly the bell rang, signaling the end of first period. Team Phantom managed to stop laughing, then gathered their items and rushed out the door ahead of the crowd. Dash barreled after them immediately, determined to make that freak Fenton pay for insinuating that _he_, the almighty _Dash Baxter_, was afraid of the _dark_!

_Where did the time go? _Mr. Lancer wondered to himself. _That certainly didn't feel like a full fifty minutes…well, this was certainly a good class anyway. _He glanced at the list in his hand again, and then let his gaze roam around the room, stopping on a slip of paper that had slipped to the floor beside Mr. Fenton's seat in the mad rush towards the door.

He walked over and picked it up, seeing a note scrawled from Ms. Manson on it: _You should say Paralipophobia, Danny._

_**That would be appropriate, wouldn't it? But I think it's giving away too much – Danny Fenton doesn't try in school, so why would he not want to neglect duty or responsibility?**_

_Point. This is fun, anyway. Nice job poking fun at Dash!_

_**Thanks! :)**_

Mr. Lancer's brow crinkled, and then smoothed out as he folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket. Just another thing to add to the long list of confusing things about Danny Fenton…

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(1) The site is being mean and not letting me write down hippo poto monstroses quipedalio phobia. I spelled it out the long way with spaces so it would work...

**A/N: Oh yes, very much fun. Hope you liked it! If you want to, review. Please.**


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